Posthumous Blogging

Leaving aside all commentary on the war in Iraq itself, I wanted to drop a link to this extraordinary blog post by blogger-turned-soldier Andrew Olmsted, who wrote under the name “G’Kar” at Obsidian Wings. He was killed this week in Iraq, but left a blog post to be published only in the event of his death.

Letters from beyond the grave are a staple in fiction, but I can’t say I’ve ever read one (or, now that I think of it, heard of anyone else receiving one) in real life. His blog-post-from-the-grave is extremely moving and surreal. Plus, it’s funny! Take, for instance, all the nerded-out quotes from the sci-fi TV series “Babylon 5,” which I do not recall as approaching anywhere near the level of profundity that it does in his post.

It would perhaps be a nicer, more humane world if somehow a new Internet Age social custom came about, compelling everyone to write and update an email or blog post or (heaven forbid) a Facebook message that became public only at your death. Or maybe it would just make everyone morbid and neurotic, I don’t know. Oldmsted’s farewell has me hoping that I might muster half his eloquence and humility in my posthumous blog post.